Unlike Alliandre, the golden-haired woman had grown tougher by the day since their capture. She was no less desperate, but she seemed to focus it all into determination. She always had a presence that belonged more to a queen than a lady’s maid, though most lady’s maids had it, but now she stumbled past them, dull-eyed, and plunged her hands into a water bucket, cupping a double handful to her mouth to drink thirstily, then scrubbing the back of a hand across her mouth.

“I want to kill Therava when we go,” she said thickly. “I would like to kill her now.” Her blue eyes took on life again, and heat. “You’re safe, Galina. She thought I was there to steal. I hadn’t started looking. Something … Something happened, and she left. After tying me up. For later.” The heat faded from her gaze to be replaced by puzzlement. “What is it, Galina? Even I feel it, and I have so little ability these Aiel women decided I was no danger.” Maighdin could channel. Not reliably, though and not very much—from what little Faile knew, the White Tower would have sent her away in a matter of weeks, and she claimed never to have gone—so her ability would not be of much use in aiding their escape. Faile would have asked what she was talking about, but she never got the chance.

Galina’s face was still pale, but otherwise she was all Aes Sedai calm. Except that she seized a handful of Maighdin’s cowl and the hair beneath and wrenched her head back. “Never you mind what it is,” she said coolly. “Nothing to do with you. All you need worry about is getting me what I want. But you should worry about that very hard.”

Before Faile could move to defend Maighdin, another woman wearing the wide golden belt over her white robes was there, pulling Galina away and slinging her to the ground. Plump and plain, Aravine had been weary-eyed and resigned the first time Faile saw her, the day the Amadician woman handed her the golden belt she wore and told her she was now in the service of “the Lady Sevanna.” The intervening days had stiffened Aravine even more than they had Maighdin, though.

“Are you mad, to lay hands on an Aes Sedai?” Galina snapped, struggling to her feet. Brushing at the dirt staining her silk robes, she directed all her fury at the plump woman. “I will have you—”

“Shall I tell Therava you were manhandling one of Sevanna’s gai’shain?” Aravine broke in coldly. Her accents were cultured. She might have been a merchant of some note, or perhaps even a noble, but she never spoke of what she had been before putting on white. “The last time Therava thought you’d poked your nose where she didn’t want it, everybody inside a hundred paces could hear you squealing and begging.”